Life Is An Hourglass
by Space-facade
Summary: Girl: pink hair, secret medical ambition, rebel, lonely - meets Guy: surgical intern, motorbike owner, crossword cheat, a long way from home. Sometimes, life doesn't give you a choice. You just have to hold on with both hands and go with it.
1. Chapter 1

**Before I begin, I should say that I've never written anything like this story before. I don't normally write romance. I also don't normally write het. However Grey's Anatomy is making me break both of those rules. I should also mention this is my first story in this fandom. That said, please give me a chance :D Feedback is hugely appreciated. **

The three thirty bell at Seattle Northwest was ear-splittingly loud, teeth-grittingly shrill, and possibly Meredith Grey's favourite sound in the world.

This was partly because it was punctual to a fault – a quality which Meredith held in high regard, despite sorely lacking it herself – but mostly because it signified the end of the day, and the beginning of the stampede to the school entrance, in which it was a matter of following the crowd or being crushed to death beneath hundreds of pairs of Ugg boots and ballet flats.

Stuffing a notebook and two textbooks into her battered rucksack, Meredith shrugged her jacket on, swung the rucksack over one shoulder and prepared to plunge into the madness of the hallways, a phantom of the bell signalling the end of her AP Chemistry class still ringing in her ears.

Five minutes later, she shouldered her way past a gaggle of giggling freshmen, and emerged into the biting air of late November. Pausing to yank her jacket collar up against the chill, and tug a woolly green scarf from her bag, she squinted across at the football fields, just visible in front of the tree line that marked the boundary of Northwest.

Multiple tiny players were jogging back and forth, the violent yellow of their jerseys making them easy to pick out, and Meredith wondered how long it would take before blue fingers and watering eyes forced the Coach to call an end to the training session.

Her eyes tracked the ball, just a tiny white pinprick at this distance, and she spared a sympathetic thought for her friend Alex, one of the few people at Northwest she actually liked, and currently running around in a banana yellow jersey and playing a daring game of 'catch me if you can' with a nasty dose of pneumonia.

As she watched, the weak November sunshine vanished suddenly behind a set of clouds, and Meredith realised with a start just how dark the sky was getting. Cursing, she re-shouldered her rucksack and headed briskly out of the gates, praying that she could manage the twenty minute walk home before the heavens opened.

* * *

Depositing his battered motorcycle helmet on the kitchen table, Derek Shepherd rolled his neck and shoulders until the bones cracked back into place with a satisfying crunch, and then slumped down into the nearest chair with a groan of relief.

Across from him, his best friend, slumped in exactly the same state, raised a mocking eyebrow of disapproval.

'Cracking bones is a foul habit, Shep.'

'Say that to the guys in Ortho,' Derek retorted.

Mark grinned.

'I would, but I value both my life and my balls.'

'One significantly higher than the other, in my opinion.'

Mark's grin took on shades of dirty, but he appeared too tired to actually think up a comeback. Derek was relieved. After a forty-eight hour shift, witty banter was distinctly low on his list, easily preceded by a hot meal, a hot shower, and fourteen uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Sadly for him, as a just-qualified surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital, and proud new owner of a one bedroom cupboard, the best he was likely to get was four hours sleep on a lumpy mattress (accompanied by the wailing of his neighbour's new baby), a cold shower (accompanied by the aroma of mould) and whatever Mark was able to rustle up from his refrigerator.

Right this precise moment though, it didn't look as if Mark was up to a huge amount of rustling. He was slumped back in the kitchen chair, head already drooping onto one shoulder.

With the typical grass-is-always-greener attitude, Derek thought that Mark's horizons were considerably brighter than his own just at that precise time.

Sure, his best friend had also just worked through the marathon first shift at the hospital, but Mark was specialising in Plastics, which, despite what he said, was definitely easier than Neuro. Add to that he had a nice warm room in his childhood home to come back to each evening, and his stepmother was Ellis 'The Ellis' Grey, things were not looking too shabby.

This in mind, Derek kicked him under the table.

'Any chance of food before I pass out?'

Mark groaned, and dragged his eyes open.

'Unless things have changed drastically around here since I moved out, I doubt it.'

'Won't your mother have got food in for you?'

Mark snorted in amusement.

'Stepmother,' he corrected, 'and no. In all probabilities Ellis will both have forgotten that I'm moving back in today, and neglected to even mention it to Meredith.'

'Meredith?'

'My stepsister.'

'Right.'

Derek had some vague recollections of Mark mentioning a stepsister once or twice, but he'd never requested details and Mark had never offered them.

'Do you two get on?' he asked.

Mark shrugged a shoulder, heaving himself to his feet.

'Most of the time. She's a good kid. Ellis said she's been going through a difficult phase the last couple of years though.'

The last of these words were muffled somewhat as Mark pulled open the fridge door and stuck his head inside. Then there was almost instant recoil, as he reeled away coughing.

'Christ!'

'What?' Derek enquired, with some amusement.

A few moments later the amusement faded swiftly, as the scent of rotting food diffused through the air and assaulted his by-no-means delicate nostrils.

'What the hell **is **that?'

'That,' Mark said, procuring a slimy green object from the fridge with his fingertips, and throwing it into the bin, 'was perhaps broccoli once upon a time. And I have a horrible feeling **this**,' he turned to the sink and poured a trail of gloopy, yellow sludge down it, 'used to be milk.'

'You weren't kidding about the food then.'

'I never kid about food. Food and sex.'

Derek snorted.

'So what's left in the fridge?'

'You mean after the evacuation of organic matter that was about to evolve, grow legs and walk out on its own? Vodka, beer, flour, and diet soda.'

Any hopes Derek'd had of a nice meal flew out the window.

He sighed.

'Takeout?'

Mark nodded.

'There's a decent Chinese place just around the corner. I'll go find the number and give them a ring. The usual, yep?'

'Mhmm.'

The kitchen door swung shut behind Mark, and Derek allowed himself to stretch backwards, his spine emitting another alarmingly loud crack.

Looking around the slightly untidy kitchen, with its empty refrigerator and slightly dusty décor, he found it hard to believe that he was actually sitting in Ellis Grey's house. He had no idea what he'd expected the home of a famous surgeon to look like, but it wasn't this.

Then again, when you spent twenty hours a day at the hospital, you probably didn't have much time for housework. His thoughts swung briefly to Mark's stepsister, and he wondered how a kid coped, essentially living on her own.

Outside, dusk was falling, and with a sudden crack and rumble of thunder, the heavens opened, and Derek watched the grey sidewalk become spattered with fat raindrops. His sister hadn't been kidding when she said it knew how to rain in Seattle.

Derek could hear Mark thumping around upstairs, apparently looking for the Chinese takeout menu, but other than that, the big house was quiet. With the heavy rain drumming on the roof, it was almosteerie, and Derek wondered again what it must be like to live virtually on your own here.

A sudden crash broke the peace, and Derek jerked, startled, wondering what the hell Mark had broken. But the noise hadn't come from upstairs, it had come from the hallway, and the voice that floated into the kitchen wasn't Mark's baritone, but instead distinctly female.

And it was cursing. Fluently.

'**Stupid, fucking rain**, could hold the **fuck **off until I got home could it? Just **five **minutes and I'd have been home and **dry, **but no, five minutes is just **too long **when you've got important raining business to be done, and never mind the girl walking home, just **rain on her**.'

Unable to help himself, Derek grinned.

Stomping footsteps proceeded up the hallway, there were two small thuds, presumably shoes being kicked off, followed by a louder one, which Derek took to be some kind of bag. Then there was a muffled thud, and a high pitched yelp of pain, and the cursing began again, louder and angrier than before.

'**OUCH, SHIT! STUPID FUCKING TEXTBOOKS! WHO LEAVES A PILE OF MEDICAL TEXTBOOKS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED HALLWAY?'**

Derek winced guiltily. He had to admit, for a kid; Mark's stepsister had a fairly impressive wrath.

There was just time for the girl to utter one more curse,

'**JESUS CHRIST,' **before the kitchen door swung open, and a figure crashed inelegantly through it.

Upon seeing the girl, Derek's first thought was 'candyfloss'.

She had shoulder-length hair, choppy and layered, and it was dyed brilliant pink. It was also dripping wet, and hung in rats tails around her face.

She was wearing black jeans and a black shirt, both drenched and clinging to her, and a soggy woolly scarf, the green colour of which clashed horribly with her hair, but matched her eyes perfectly.

Her eyes were large, green, cat-like and, Derek became aware, now fixed suspiciously upon him.

She was frozen in the doorway, balanced on one leg, the other foot clutched in her hand, slowly becoming an island, as rainwater dripped off her and formed a puddle on the floorboards.

She was absolutely tiny, so thin she could almost be described as waif-like, which, Derek though distractedly, could help explain the lack of food in the house, but even so he could tell that his assumption of her age had been entirely wrong. She was definitely not a child.

Derek was suddenly very aware that neither of them had moved for a good minute. Running a hand through his hair, he offered the girl a weak smile.

She didn't return it. She did however, lower her foot to the floor, and take a squelching step forward out of the puddle.

Then, fixing him with a green glare, she morphed into the spitting image of her mother, and demanded,

'Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?'


	2. Chapter 2

**In which surprise, and not entirely welcome, houseguests show up.**

**Huge thanks to caliginous, leoroarz1 and McAwesome 17 for the reviews. I really appreciate them! :D**

Occasionally, everyone has those days where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and Fate has a fine time with practical jokes. Meredith had a feeling today was one of those days.

When she'd reached the end of her road without the heavens opening, she'd dared allow herself to hope she might actually make it home still dry and relatively warm. In retrospect, this tiny spark of optimism had been a mistake.

She'd been approximately three hundred metres from her front door, when the ominous clouds had given up holding rainwater as a bad job, and within seconds she'd resembled a drowned rat as torrents of water poured from the sky.

Battling her key into the front door, she'd staggered through into the hallway with a groan of relief, dripping water like the Niagara Falls, and gratefully discarded both her saturated Converses and her rucksack, cursing fluently the entire time.

Swinging around to go through to the kitchen in search of food, she'd almost fallen over a large stack of medical textbooks, haphazardly heaped in the middle of the floor and badly stubbed her toe in the process.

Allowing both the volume and the crassness of her swearing to turn up a notch, she'd aimed a vicious scowl at Hereditary Cancers, and hopped her way through to the kitchen.

It was difficult to turn a door knob with one hand, whilst balancing on one foot and swearing, and so her entrance into the kitchen had been staggeringly inelegant.

And now she was standing, on one leg, staring at the strange guy sitting at her kitchen table.

A battered motorcycle helmet was discarded on the side, and the man wore a worn biking jacket over rumpled light blue scrubs. Neither the colour nor the style of the scrubs particularly suited him but somehow that didn't manage to detract from the fact that he was one of the best looking guys Meredith had had the good fortune to lay eyes on recently. Or possibly, ever.

His hair was inky black, and artfully tousled – the perfect bed head, as her best friend Christina would say – and he was tall, lean and very nicely muscled. At least, what Meredith could see of him from behind the table was.

And just to top off the package, were the eyes. Meredith couldn't lie and say she'd always been a sucker for a nice pair of eyes, but this man. Well. They were definitely his best feature – brilliant blue, crinkling around the edges, and, Meredith suddenly realised, hot with amusement as they regarded her.

Fighting off the sudden, and somewhat rare, urge to blush as she realised exactly what she must look like, Meredith hurriedly took a step forward out of the puddle that had formed at her feet, fixed the man with her best version of her mother's glare, and demanded,

'Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?'

* * *

Derek knew that he should really be answering the girl's question, before she reached for the phone to call the police, but he was so transfixed by the miniature, pink-haired, pixie-ish Ellis Grey that he found himself with a temporary case of lockjaw.

After a few seconds of him failing to answer, during which the girl's astonishing green eyes seemed to begin spitting fire, she moved forward, heading for the sideboard. At first, with a light touch of gut-clenching panic, Derek honestly thought she was going to dial 911, but instead she reached past the phone and snagged a tea towel.

She pointed a finger at him, still glaring suspiciously.

'Don't even move,' she warned, and then vanished under the tea towel.

She rubbed briskly for a few moments, and then emerged, pink-cheeked. Her hair, now half dry, stood out around her head in a fluffy pink halo, and Derek, despite the awkward situation, had immense difficulty smothering a grin. He'd never once in his life described a girl as 'adorable' but he was having difficulty coming up with any other word for this situation.

The girl, now water was no longer dripping down her nose, straightened up, hands on her hips.

'Okay. Unless I'm suffering from temporary amnesia, then I don't know you, and I didn't invite you around. So you have…' she paused, shook her sleeve out of the way, fixed her eyes on a silver watch, 'precisely ten seconds to explain before I call the cops.'

Hurriedly, Derek attempted an explanation.

'Mark,' he croaked.

She stared at him as if doubting his sanity.

'Mark? Who's **Mark**?'

'…your brother?'

'What? As in 'Mark Sloane' Mark?'

'Yeah…I'm a friend of his from the hospital?'

'From the hospital?'

'Yeah. We're both interns. At Seattle Grace.'

'Interns? At Seattle Grace?'

Derek felt a warm swell of amusement at her bewilderment.

'This explanation would go a lot quicker if you stopped repeating everything I say.'

'Right.' She ran a hand through her hair. 'Sorry. Let me get this straight. You're saying that you are friends with my brother. Mark. And that you're both interns at Seattle Grace.'

The small swell of amusement became a full blown grin.

'Those do appear to be the facts established thus far.'

She glowered at him.

'Shut up. What are you doing in my house?'

'Your brother invited me back for dinner.'

'My brother invited you back for dinner…' her voice trailed off in incredulous disbelief as if he'd said something outrageous. 'Why is my brother even **here**?'

'He…lives here?'

'No. No no no no. He moved out. Four years ago, he moved out and he went to med school in New York. I'm sure about that because I've been keeping Monty in his room.'

Well, okay then. Derek had honestly thought Mark had been joking about his stepmother forgetting to mention to his sister that he was moving back to Seattle. But judging from the goldfish gawp the girl was wearing, she hadn't had any idea at all.

Luckily for him, as he was floundering for something to say, a voice came from the doorway.

'You've been keeping Monty in my room?'

It appeared Mark had finally found the Chinese menu.

* * *

Frozen in place, and still very damp, Meredith wondered if the entire world had gone mad.

There was a horribly handsome stranger, in blue scrubs and a biker jacket, sitting in her kitchen. There was a stack of medical textbooks that she now realised could not belong to her mother in the hallway. Standing in the doorway, taller and broader-shouldered than before, was her brother – the brother she'd seen neither hide nor hair of for nearly three years. And apparently, he'd moved back in.

Maybe it was just a bad dream. Maybe if she closed her eyes, then she'd wake up. She squeezed them shut. Brilliant coloured splodges exploded on the inside of her eyelids, and a deep, all too familiar voice, spoke from the vicinity of the door,

'You can't wish us away, Mer. Sorry. Doesn't work like that.'

I'm not wishing 'us' away, Meredith thought slightly hysterically, reluctantly opening one eye, I'm wishing **you **away. Your ridiculously handsome friend can stay as long as he likes, especially if he keeps grinning like that.

Prying the other eye open, she fixed both on her brother in an angry glare. Mark was lounging against the kitchen counter, arms folded, legs crossed, and arrogant smirk firmly in place.

He was very much not a dream.

'Crap!'

One of his eyebrows rose.

'I missed you too, little sister. I take it Ellis forgot to mention I was coming?'

He was so self-assured, so unapologetic, so utterly **Mark** that Meredith's palms itched to slap him.

'Are you an aortic aneurysm? No! Then why the hell would she remember? Would it seriously have killed you to have called to warn me?'

Her brother shuffled his feet slightly, looking minorly abashed. He shot her an apologetic grin, accompanied with his best puppy-dog eyes. Unfortunately, having grown up with them, Meredith was virtually immune.

She gritted her teeth.

'Seriously, Mark, just a call! I mean, you haven't bothered to come home in almost three years, but I take it you do still remember that I possess a phone?'

Now Mark did look decidedly guilty.

'You know I couldn't come visit easily after that Christmas, Mer. But I should have called. I am sorry.'

'Humph.'

Meredith was aware that she was acting like a five year old. But her stepbrother was just so infuriating. He had refused to come home to visit her for three entire years, just staying in touch with the occasional email and text message, and now he turned up out of the blue, with an intern friend in tow, announcing that he was moving back in.

Mark pushed himself up away from the counter and approached her.

'Don't I get a hug hello now we've got the hysterics out of the way?'

'I don't **do **hysterics,' Meredith informed him grumpily, squeezing him briefly around the middle. At least, she intended it to be brief, but Mark seized her firmly around the waist and swung her up and around into a bear hug.

Unable to stop herself, Meredith squeaked in shock. Mark re-deposited her on her feet like a sack of potatoes and once she'd stopped reeling and replaced the oxygen he'd squeezed out of her lungs, she drew herself up to her full height and slapped him hard round the face.

'I **missed **you, you jackass!' she snapped.

* * *

Never before had Derek found family drama so entertaining. In fact, normally, domestic arguments were something which he avoided like the plague.

But there was something undeniably amusing, and possibly even heart warming, about watching his cocksure, arrogant best friend get put firmly in place by his sister.

One thing was for sure, he thought, as he watched Mark reel backwards with a yelp of pain, as a tiny, ineffectual fist collided with his face, Meredith Grey was something a little bit different.

Try as he might, he could not keep his face clear of all traces of a smile as he watched her.

Mark was gingerly rubbing his cheek, which had gone a lovely shade of crimson, and silence had momentarily fallen.

It was into this silence that Derek's stomach chose to rumble.

He winced with embarrassment, and Mark shot him a wryly amused look. Meredith caught his eye briefly, and then turned her face away, hiding behind a curtain of hair, but not before Derek'd caught the tiny smile that tweaked the corners of her mouth up.

'Hungry, Shep?' Mark's voice was mocking.

'Forty eight hour shift,' Derek pointed out. 'I last ate at six thirty yesterday evening, and it is now six fifteen. I was not designed to work twenty four hours on only a granola bar.'

'Shit! Did you say six fifteen?'

Derek found his eyes flickering willingly back to Meredith, who was frantically checking her watch.

'What's happening at six fifteen?' Mark enquired.

'It's what's happening at six thirty that's relevant,' Meredith snapped, 'I'm late. And I'm wet. And I'm late. And late and wet is not what you want to be on a first date.'

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Derek was wincing at her phrasing, unable to stop the snort of laughter escaping. She shot him a black look.

Derek could almost feel Mark fighting not to make a crude comment. After a few moments, he appeared to win the battle because he asked,

'Date?'

Already halfway to the door, Meredith turned, looking irritated,

'Yes, Mark. Date. Where two people go out and have fun, and the girl doesn't have to pay, and sometimes there are flowers and romance.'

'Who with?'

Derek had never seen Mark in protective big brother mode. It was almost…cute.

God forbid Mark should ever find out he'd just thought that.

'No-one you know,' Meredith dismissed him. 'Now. If you two are going to eat, then you can do it outside, because I hate Chinese food, and I don't want to come home to the kitchen stinking of it.'

Mark stared at her.

'Are you kidding? You want us to eat on the porch?'

'Yes.'

'No.'

'You didn't call.'

'Now that's just emotional blackmail. Nasty.'

'But effective.'

Mark glowered.

Meredith tossed her hair over one shoulder in a flurry of pink.

'I'm going upstairs to have a shower. And when I get back, you won't be here. So Mark, I'll see you later. Stay out of your room until I find Monty. And goodbye…uh…uhh…'

There was a moment's pause until Derek realised she was looking at him, waiting for his name.

'Derek,' he supplied.

She looked at him closely for a second, from underneath her eyelashes.

'Right, Derek,' she spoke slowly. 'Meredith.'

He smiled at her, feeling a slight twist in his stomach as he did so.

'Nice to meet you.'

She shot him a brief smile, which caused a strange warmth in his chest, and then with a whirl of black and pink and a slam of the door, she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**In which there is a short conversation, and a connection is formed.**

**Again, huge thanks to caliginous, leoroarz1 and thorteso for the reviews. I suppose I could say I'm writing this for you guys! **

It was remarkable, Derek thought, how quickly time passes when you were spending eighty five percent of it up to your eyebrows in charts, sutures and surgeries, and the other fifteen percent asleep.

He'd been in Seattle a total of three weeks and three days, but it felt like mere hours. It'd had taken him all of two shifts to decide that the supposedly 'tough' four years at med school were essentially child's play in comparison to internship. Derek worked between 90 and 100 hours a week, crawled back to his flat, fell straight into bed, and ate nothing but energy bars, takeout and hospital food.

The only people he knew in Seattle were his fellow interns, Mark, and the staff at Joe's bar – which appeared to be a second home to most of the hospital. Seattle itself was nothing like Manhattan. It rained constantly, as though some giant switch in the sky had gotten stuck, and there were giant expanses of water in three out of four directions.

Derek was aware that Seattle Grace was one of the finest surgical programs, and he'd been extremely lucky to get in, but he couldn't help feeling a long way from home.

He envied Mark considerably. His best friend obviously did not get on with his stepmother – not that he was talking to Derek about it – but he still had a warm, family home to go back to, and a few times Derek had spotted him leaving the hospital accompanied by a pink-haired figure.

At the end of the day, Mark had roots in Seattle, and Derek's were all back in New York. Most days he was busy and it was fine, but just occasionally, when he'd had a particularly long or a particularly bad day, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to wallow in loneliness.

Still, on the bright side, his internship was everything he'd ever dreamed of. His first two weeks had been spent with a neuro resident, and Derek thought he'd done a fairly decent job of impressing. He'd been allowed to scrub in on a couple of good surgeries at any rate.

This week, however, he was on a general surgery rotation, assigned to Dr Ellis Grey. He didn't know much about Mark's stepmother – other than her formidable surgical reputation, and her apparently somewhat tense familial relationships – but he got the feeling she was a very tough woman to impress.

At least, in the three days he'd been on her service, he apparently hadn't done anything worthy of an invitation to scrub in. He'd never performed so many stitches, nor spent so much time in the Pit in his life.

He was pondering this fact, with no small degree of annoyance, whilst picking at an unidentifiable sandwich he'd made the mistake of purchasing from the hospital canteen, when his pager went off.

He checked it quickly, and then froze.

'911, Dr Grey' the display screen read.

Shoving himself to his feet, abandoning the sandwich with relief, Derek took off out of the canteen.

* * *

Five minutes later, he arrived, panting, at the nurses' station on the surgical floor. Dr Grey was there, reading a file intently and tapping a finger against the desk.

Derek approached her with some trepidation.

'Dr Grey?'

She looked up, and the fierce green eyes reminded him instantly of Mark's sister. Blinking rapidly, he attempted to stop picturing Ellis Grey with marsh-mallow coloured hair.

'Are you the intern?'

'Yes, Ma'am. I'm Derek Shep...'

She waved a hand at him impatiently.

'Yes, I don't care. I need you to do something for me. You're on my service this week aren't you?'

Good of you to notice, Derek thought.

'What do you need me to do?'

'I have a bowel resection scheduled for this afternoon, and three voice mails from my daughter's principal on my phone.'

Derek blinked, trying and failing to connect the two statements.

'So did you need me to prep the patient, or check on the OR or…something?'

Dr Grey shot him a look that suggested she held him in the same regard as pond life.

'No. I need you to go to Seattle Northwest High School and collect my daughter, and take her home.'

'I'm sorry. What?'

Derek failed to keep the shock out of his voice. Whatever he'd been expecting her to ask, it hadn't been that. Ellis Grey's glare turned icy, and Derek found himself thinking that the similarity between her and Meredith wasn't that great after all. They both had the same fierce green eyes, but Dr Grey's were cold in anger, whilst, from what he remembered, Meredith's had been hot.

'I want you to collect my daughter from Seattle Northwest, and take her home,' Dr Grey repeated, enunciating each word clearly and sarcastically. 'I take it you can drive?'

Shaking thoughts of green eyes and different temperatures from his head, Derek forced himself to concentrate.

'Yes, I can drive, but that's not really the…'

'Not really the **what**?'

The point, Derek had been going to say, but from the look he was receiving, that might perhaps be a mistake.

'Right,' he snapped. 'Fine. Seattle Northwest. Your daughter, got it.'

His tone was several degrees away from polite, and Dr Grey leaned back slightly and appraised him.

'Is there a problem, Dr…?'

'Shepherd. And I just wasn't aware babysitting was in my job description.'

The file was slammed shut.

'Your job description is that you are an **intern**. And it is your job to keep your resident **happy**. So you will do what I ask, and you will not complain, or I will see to it that your job goes to someone who will do it **better**, are we clear?'

'Crystal,' Derek muttered.

'Good.' Turning on her heel, Dr Grey walked away. She was just about to turn the corner of the corridor when something in Derek made him speak up.

'Dr Grey!'

She turned around slowly, jaw somewhat clenched.

'Shepherd?'

In for a penny, in for a pound, Derek thought.

'I heard you were doing a double aortic valve replacement tomorrow. Any chance I could scrub in?'

There was deathly silence during which Ellis Grey regarded him through narrowed eyes.

'Are you **bargaining **with me, Shepherd?'

Derek opened his mouth, and then shut it again, unsure what to say.

'You've got some nerve.'

And this, Derek thought, is where I either lose my job, or get confined to sutures for six months.

'Luckily for you, I like a man with a backbone. I will see you in OR 2 tomorrow, 11 am sharp.'

Relief, shock and amazement rushed through him in quick succession.

'Right,' he stuttered. 'I mean thank you. Really. Thank you. For the opportunity.'

'Hmmm,' was all she said, before turning sharply on her heel, and vanishing around the corner of the corridor.

Derek was still frozen in place a few seconds later, when her voice echoed back towards him.

'My daughter, Shepherd. GO.'

* * *

Half an hour later, Derek was pulling up outside Seattle Northwest High School, thanking God for both the invention of the SatNav, and Mark's car. He'd belatedly realised when he'd reached the car park that he'd taken his bike to the hospital that morning, and in light of recent events, he hadn't been prepared to antagonise Ellis Grey further by potentially involving her daughter in a motorbike crash.

Running a hand through his hair, he climbed out of the car, and approached the school reception somewhat warily. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that he had no idea what he was doing here, and having met Meredith the grand total of once, she probably wouldn't be very pleased to see him if she was in some kind of trouble.

He approached the motherly-looking woman behind the front desk.

'Hi,' he said.

She smiled at him benignly.

'Hello dear. How may I help you?'

Slightly emboldened Derek said,

'I'm here to collect Meredith Grey?'

The woman's face instantly took on a concerned expression.

'Ah yes, Meredith. Are you a relative?'

'No, I'm uh…' here Derek had to pause, wondering vainly what the best way of describing his non-relationship with Meredith was. 'I'm her brother's best friend. And I work for her mother.'

The woman's eyebrows rose knowingly.

'Ah, one of Dr Grey's interns. I'll need to see some identification if you please. Just to be on the safe side.'

Derek fought to stop his eyebrows hitting his hairline. **One **of Dr Grey's interns? He fished his driving license out of his wallet, and passed it over.

The receptionist scanned it, nodded, and passed it back.

'Take a seat, Dr Shepherd. I'll fetch Meredith.'

'Right, okay,' he muttered.

The woman was turning away, when something occurred to him.

'Wait,' he said, 'don't you have to tell me what's going on? So that I can…keep her mother updated?'

The receptionist gave him a small, somewhat pinched smile.

'She's not a surgery, Dr Shepherd, she's a person. She doesn't have updates. And this is the sixth time this year that we've been left with no option but to send her home, and each time, her mother has been too busy to collect her. I think we can spare Meredith the humiliation of telling her business to a complete stranger, so that he can suck up to her mother by passing on **updates**, don't you?'

Dumbstruck and feeling approximately two inches tall, Derek nodded. The **sixth **time? The sixth time in **four **months? And Ellis Grey hadn't come to collect her once. Jesus Christ.

Sinking down onto one of the chairs in reception, he grappled with an almost overwhelming rush of sympathy for Meredith.

He had a big family, four sisters, and he couldn't image growing up in a world where he wasn't the most important thing in his mother's eyes.

The idea that the great Ellis Grey had become great at the expense of her daughter was suddenly looking very likely, and it filled Derek with a combination of shock and anger. Which was completely irrational, because he didn't even know Meredith Grey.

Derek's thought process was cut off abruptly, when red Converses and a pair of denim clad legs entered his field of vision. He looked up.

Meredith was wearing tight-fitting blue jeans, a black v-neck jumper, and the green wool scarf from the other day. When Derek raised his head, her eyes widened in recognition.

'Crap.' She said. 'It's you.'

He smiled at her, slightly strained, and stood up.

'Shall we go?'

She nodded mutely, hitched her rucksack onto her shoulders, directed a smile at the receptionist and walked out of the doors.

Derek followed her.

They walked in silence for about fifteen feet, before Meredith spoke again.

'Drop the pity thing already, would you? I'm a good ten foot away from you, and I can still feel you being all pitying.'

They were outside the school gates now, away from the eyes of the receptionist.

'I wasn't…' Derek started to protest, but was cut off by Meredith swinging around and jabbing her finger into his chest.

'You **were**. Don't even try to deny it. They all do. Yes, I'm poor pathetic Meredith Grey, whose mother can't even be bothered to collect her from school when she's been freaking suspended, and guess what? I don't care. My mother doesn't care. My brother doesn't care. You don't even know me, so please, don't try to kid yourself that **you **goddamned care. Okay?'

By the time she reached the end of her tirade, she was slightly out of breath, her cheeks were flushed to match her hair, and she was standing awfully close to him. Derek couldn't help but notice that her eyes were very very green this close up.

He swallowed.

'Okay,' he said, 'I won't pity you.'

She smiled.

'Good. Now where's the bike?'

'The bike?'

She looked confused.

'Yeah…you had a bike helmet, before? So I just presumed you had a bike to match it.'

'Right, yes. I do. But not here. I borrowed Mark's car. Didn't think your mother would appreciate it if I got you killed on the way home.'

Meredith sighed.

'Damn. I was looking forward to the bike. I've never been on one, you know? Bring the bike next time.'

Derek raised an eyebrow.

'There's going to be a next time?'

They'd reached the car by this point, and as Derek held the passenger door open for her, he got a strong whiff of some floral scent. He found himself suddenly mesmerised by the soft patch of skin behind Meredith's ear, as she reached down to deposit her bag on the floor by the seat, and had to smother the urge to see if the floral scent originated there.

Her reply to his question came somewhat muffled as she slipped into the car, and he forced all inappropriate thoughts of his boss's daughter, his best friend's sister, this very very off-limits school girl out of his head.

'As long as there are still jackasses in high school, yeah, there's going to be a next time.'

Chuckling unwillingly, Derek walked around and swung himself into the driver's seat. Gunning the engine, he said,

'I'm sure your mother would be ecstatic to hear that. I'm going to need directions to your house by the way.'

Meredith shrugged.

'Keep going straight until I tell you otherwise. And my mother isn't going to hear it is she?'

Derek could feel her eyes on him, and found himself with the strangest feeling that this was some kind of test.

'No,' he said, 'she isn't.'

Meredith turned away to look out of the window, but not before Derek caught the smile on her face. Apparently, he'd passed.

A few moments passed in silence, before Derek's curiosity peaked. He'd taken on board what the receptionist said about him not needing to know Meredith's business, but now he had no intention of telling her mother. He just plain wanted to know. Why, he wasn't sure.

'So what did you do?'

She slanted a look at him out of the corner of her eye.

'I broke a guy's nose.'

Derek spluttered in shock.

'You? **You? **Broke a guy's nose? How? With your tiny ineffectual fists?'

Meredith grinned at him, open and warm, and his stomach did a flip.

'When you're a doctor's kid, it doesn't matter that your fists are tiny and ineffectual. You know where to hit.'

Derek laughed.

'I suppose you do. What did the unfortunate guy do to incur your wrath?'

Meredith's gaze darkened.

'He called a friend of mine a faggot.'

Derek stared at her, slightly shocked.

'And that deserved a broken nose?'

She shrugged and turned away from him, withdrawing slightly.

'I'm sure you think it's just a word, but yes, that deserved it.'

'I'm not judging you,' Derek said.

She snorted.

'Sure you're not. You know, for a moment there, I almost thought you were cool.'

At her words, Derek felt a tiny stab of hurt, the origins of which completely mystified him. He felt an inexplicable urge to cheer her up, make her smile again.

'Okay,' he said. 'I'm not really that cool, and I don't get why it matters. So tell me. Tell me why it matters.'

She turned back to look at him, as though contemplating something, calculating a risk.

'Okay,' she said, after a few seconds. 'Last year, I got flu. Really really bad flu. But my mother didn't care, because she was busy and I wasn't a surgical case. And Mark wasn't home. Izzie skived off school for eight days, and spent them on my bedroom floor, force feeding me water and vitamin C. Christina never skips class, but she bought me all the homework assignments, and did double copies of all her class notes so I wouldn't fall behind. George spent the whole of one evening on the phone with me, reading me a book because I couldn't sleep. And Alex came by every morning and every evening with bagels and chicken soup, and forced me to change my clothes and wash my hair.'

She paused, as if assessing his reaction. Derek kept his eyes on the road, and his expression deliberately blank.

'I have a family,' she said, 'but my family don't really care. My mother doesn't remember my birthday, and I haven't seen Mark for three years. But Alex, who doesn't even know what a wok is, made me fucking chicken soup. So yeah. When people call him a faggot? It matters.'

It took Derek a while to digest what she'd said. His stomach was relentlessly tying itself in knots, and he was fighting the urge to deck his best friend. Which was insane, because he'd known Meredith all of two hours, and so should not be feeling protective.

He cleared his throat.

'You're right,' he said, 'it matters.'

Meredith looked at him, several strands of hair falling across her face, and her smile was small but real.

'Yeah,' she said, 'it does.'

There was a pause, during which the air felt thick enough to slice with a knife, but not the slightest bit awkward, which wasn't something Derek had ever experienced before.

'So, how come you agreed to this anyway?' Meredith asked, taking him somewhat by surprise.

He snorted.

'You've met your mother, right? Do you imagine I had a choice?'

She grinned.

'Fair point. But you don't have that angry, down-trodden, 'Boo-hoo, I'm a poor mistreated intern' look that most of you lot carry around.'

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed.

'Yeah, shut up already.'

Laughing, he ran a hand through his hair.

'No, you're right. By some act of bravery, or possibly foolishness, I managed to bargain to scrub in on a surgery with your mother tomorrow in return for collecting you.'

'So basically, you're cashing in on my misfortune and uncaring mother to get surgeries?'

Startled, Derek swung to look at her, so fast he cricked his neck.

'No!' he started to protest, before realising she was laughing. 'Not funny.'

She grinned unrepentantly.

'Yes it was. So, what surgery?'

He shrugged, not wanting to bore her with medical details.

'Just a heart one.'

'Aneurysm?'

'No. Double valve replacement.'

Meredith gave a low whistle.

'Nice. No wonder you aren't boo-hooing.'

Derek shot her a surprised look.

'Wait, you know what a double valve replacement **is**?'

She rolled her eyes at him.

'Ellis Grey's daughter. Oh wait,' she touched his arm briefly, and Derek's stomach performed a swallow dive at the contact. 'Pull over here.'

Derek obeyed, pulling into the sidewalk in front of a large Victorian house. A large, unfamiliar Victorian house.

'Wait,' he said. 'You don't live here.'

'No,' Meredith agreed, 'I don't.'

'I'm supposed to be taking you home.'

She eyed him grumpily.

'Remember what I said about thinking you were cool, Derek?'

It was the first time she'd used his name, and the fact that she'd remembered it sent a little warm shiver down his spine.

'I do remember, but I also remember how ecstatic I was to get my job as a poor, down-trodden intern. Plus I get to scrub in on major heart surgery tomorrow, and it's an experience I'd like to be alive for.'

Meredith rolled her eyes.

'Okay, my mother terrifies you. You're shaking in your scrubs. I get that. But remember what I said about my family?'

'About them not **being** much of a family?'

'Right, that. Well, this is Christina's house, and Christina is my sister. I have a key, so I'm just going to let myself in and wait for her, okay?'

'But…home. I'm supposed to take you there.'

Derek tried one last token protest, although he had a feeling he'd lost the battle.

Meredith got out of the car.

'My sister lives here. This **is **home, Derek.'

'She's not your sister.'

'In all the ways that matter.' Meredith glared at him.

Derek knew when he was beaten.

'Fine,' he said. 'But if your mother kills me, it's on you.'

She grinned at him, eyes lighting happily.

'I'll send a wreath to the funeral. Thanks for the ride, Derek.'

He nodded mutinously at her and pointed at the house.

'Yeah, yeah. Go.'

She turned away, and had gone a couple of steps when she turned around.

Reaching up she brushed a few strands of hair from her face, and smiled at him.

'Next time? Next time, Derek, bring the bike.'

Derek was still smiling when he pulled back up outside the hospital twenty minutes later.


	4. Chapter 4

**In which routines are formed, and there is dancing.**

**Big thanks to Juni, ilikegoo, Chicleeblair, tanilc, KathleenMcdempsey, and caliginous for the reviews. You guys are amazing.**

**And thanks especially to Chicleeblair for drawing it politely to my attention that aspects of the last chapter were very similar to some aspects of a story she had written. Purely coincidental, no plagiarism was intended on my part. The joys of a small fandom :)**

When he was growing up, Derek's youngest sister had always insisted on putting on socks before trousers, and on drinking coffee before orange juice. Derek, as a very definite trousers-and-orange-juice first kind of guy, had found this little routine eternally bizarre. But the fact was - it was Amelia's routine, and weird as it was, it was routine none the less.

Growing up, Derek had never understood the trappings of routine; the way you find yourself committed to the strangest tasks, find yourself doing things that make little or no sense, purely because they have somehow become something you just **do**.

He understood it now.

Because somehow, over the last month, he had found himself chauffeuring Meredith Grey home from school no less than four times. Fortunately, for Ellis Grey's blood pressure at least, only one of these occasions had been an actual suspension.

The first time, Derek had walked into reception to find Meredith already waiting there, slouched in one of the chairs, arms crossed, and hair hanging across her face. On hearing footsteps, she'd looked up and said,

'Oh crap. You, again.'

But there'd been just the tiniest flicker in her stony expression that had led Derek to believe she might just have been pleased to see him, and not one of the other interns.

They'd reached the car, and completed the first five minutes of the drive in silence, before Derek had said,

'So what did you do this time?'

Meredith had shrugged.

'It wasn't me actually. It was Christina. Some girl called her a crack whore, and she got mad, and…well. I had to back her up. She's my best friend.'

Derek had just nodded.

'Right.'

Meredith had looked at him, slightly suspicious.

'Aren't you going to tell me that whoever it was didn't deserve it? Or that it doesn't really matter and I should learn to let things go?'

'No,' Derek said. 'Because I'm not your mother, or your teacher, and because it does matter.'

There was a long silence.

'You still didn't bring the bike.' Meredith said.

'No,' he agreed, 'I didn't. Because I still value my life, and I still have surgeries to look forward to.'

'Oh yeah?' she said. 'What surgery did you get in return this time?'

Derek grinned.

'Kidney transplant.'

* * *

And that, had been the stage setting for the strangest routine Derek had ever performed in his life.

The second time he picked Meredith up, she'd missed her bus back from an 'after school activity thing' and he was scrubbing in on a liver resection that afternoon.

The third time, she'd passed out in AP Physics, and needed a ride home at lunch. He got to watch the removal of an apple-sized tumour from someone's stomach.

And the most recent occurrence had involved him collecting her from outside the Museum of Flight, where apparently there'd been a school trip and she'd left her bus fare at home. The next day he was watching a craniotomy and DBS treatment for Parkinson's.

As far as routines go, a twenty-two year old intern ferrying a pink-haired teenage rebel home under the strict instructions of her mother, in order to get in on amazing surgeries, was weird. There was no way around that, and the other interns on the surgical program, Mark included, were having a field day taking the piss.

But try as he might, Derek found it extremely hard to resent his routine. He certainly hadn't considered breaking it, not even once. And try as he might, he couldn't quite convince himself it was because of all the amazing surgeries he was getting out of Ellis Grey.

In fact, he had an unpleasant, hollow, sinking feeling that quite a bit of it had to do with the fact that each time he got to spend even a simple ten minutes with Meredith Grey, he was left with a smile that he couldn't quite eradicate for several hours after.

It wasn't that he **liked** her per se. Meredith was just a kid, for God's sake. But she was also independent and fierce in a way he'd never encountered before. She was loyal to an almost pathological degree. She was smart, and funny, and at the same time, so damaged that it made Derek's heart ache a little. She had pink hair, and a laugh that was like the fucking sun. It **wasn't **that he liked her. It was just that…he likedher.

But goddamn, he was going to do his level best to convince himself that it was in a friendly, protective, elder-brother's-best-friend kind of way.

* * *

A week after the collection from the Museum of Flight, Derek hadn't had any more requests for favours from Ellis Grey. And he was starting to hate himself. Just the tiniest bit.

He hadn't seen Meredith in over a week. And now every time his pager went off with a 911 from Dr Grey, he found himself hoping. And every time Mark left the hospital early, he found himself peering out of the window to see if there was any glimpse of a pink-haired girl to be had.

It was pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

If he added up the actual amount of time he'd spent talking to Meredith, it would probably total three hours. Just.

And yet he missed her.

He'd known her three hours, he hadn't seen her in over a week, and he fucking missed her.

What was wrong with him?

Unfortunately, the self-berating had absolutely no effect at all when Mark invited him over for dinner on Saturday night. Derek's brain connected Mark's house with seeing Meredith, dripping wet, and glaring at him, and he'd said yes before he could even fully process the thought.

* * *

And so here he was, standing outside Mark's house, in the dark, in the rain, waiting for his best friend to answer the goddamn door. Preferably before Derek drowned, and / or froze to death. Preferably.

However, when, five minutes later, Derek was still standing there, having rung the doorbell twice more, and could no longer feel his nose, he lost patience.

Abandoning good manners, he reached out and tried the door handle, and to his vast surprise and relief, it opened.

Stepping through into the warm, dimly lit hallway, he discarded his wet jacket, unlaced his boots, and peeled off his saturated socks for good measure.

Then, bare-footed, he padded down the hallway in the direction of living room, following the sound of music. When Derek opened the door, and the full volume of the music blasted out into his face, he realised why no-one in the living room had heard the doorbell. The drumbeat, the bass guitar, and the keyboard were almost deafening.

Stepping into the room, he closed the door behind him, and then looked to his left, at the portion of the room that had previously not been in his eye-line.

And he froze.

Because Meredith was dancing. And for some reason, right now, that seemed like the only important fact in his entire world.

She was laughing, looking up from under her eyelashes at an Asian girl with riotously curly hair, as they twisted and ground to the music. Derek found himself unable to take his eyes off the slim lines of her hips as she moved, his vision narrowed to just that strip of skin that showed above the waistline of her jeans whenever she raised her arms.

The music built swiftly to a crescendo, and then faded away, the last strains of guitar echoing and dying, and Meredith and her dance partner struck a final pose, before collapsing into laughter. Meredith reeled backwards, her pink hair a ruffled cloud around her face, and her eyes glowing, as she laughed uncontrollably.

She didn't do that very often, Derek had discovered, and his first thought was that it was a beautiful sound, and that it ought to happen more. His second thought was his conscience, bashing him around the inside of the skull and muttering 'pathetic, utterly pathetic, and utterly inappropriate, protective, and big-brother's-best-friend' in a disgusted tone.

He shook his head, and then became violently aware that the room had gone quiet, and that five pairs of eyes were fixed questioningly on him.

Over by the fire place, a guy with short brown hair, and the most condescending sneer Derek had ever seen was playing cards with a blonde girl, who had the potential ability to make Barbie weep with envy.

A smaller guy, with tousled longish brown hair was collapsed on the couch in an easy sprawl, and had apparently been watching Meredith and the other girl, before Derek rudely stole his attention by intruding.

The Asian girl who had been dancing, had swept her mad curls out of her face, and was now pouring what looked like a tequila shot, whilst glaring at him.

Meredith was just staring at him in surprise.

Derek decided perhaps he'd better say something.

'Hi.'

She smiled at him easily.

'Hey, Derek.'

The Asian girl approached Meredith, and handed her the tequila shot.

'Seriously, Mer? **That's **Derek? The intern?'

'Shut up, Christina!' Meredith hissed.

The Asian girl, Christina, raised an eyebrow at Derek.

'Well, I can see why we're calling him McDreamy.'

Derek employed every inch of self control he had not to snort with laughter at the look of horror on Meredith's face. As it was, he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin, and when she saw his expression, she went scarlet, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again moments later, she looked him directly in the eye.

'Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to acknowledge that you are ludicrously good-looking, and if that was a fact you were until this point unaware of, well then, now you've been informed. Then we are going to forget that Christina knows how to talk, and everything she might have said in the last thirty seconds. And then you're going to tell me why you're in my house. Uninvited. Again.'

Derek felt another rush of that completely brotherly warmth at her rambling.

'That was your cue to explain your presence in my living room, Derek.'

Derek ran a hand through his hair, and requested that his conscience beat to death the little voice that was suggesting it would be much more satisfactory to run his hand through **her **hair.

'My answer hasn't changed, Mer. Mark.'

Meredith looked pained.

'He invited you over **again**?'

Derek nodded seriously.

'Yep. Because unfortunately…that's the point of being somebody's best friend. You tend to have to hang out with them. In Mark's case, no-one regrets it more than I do.'

Meredith sighed.

'He has **got **to stop inviting you over when he isn't around.'

'He was just upstairs last time.' Derek pointed out.

'Yes, but upstairs is not downstairs, and is therefore not around. Anyway, this time, he actually isn't here. I think he went to the corner shop to get more beer.'

'And more tequila,' added the blonde girl from over by the fire.

'And more tequila,' Meredith ammended.

Derek ran a hand over his chin and sighed.

'Right, well I'll just go wait in the kitchen for him then. Sorry to disturb.'

'Or,' Christina said, 'you could stay and dance.'

'You could,' Meredith said.

Shuffling his feet, Derek was torn. Part of him would have liked nothing better than to stay and hang out with Meredith and her strange friends for a while. But the part of him that had fixated straight on to the word 'dance' was more in control.

Ducking his head, he shot Meredith his best grin.

'Maybe some other time,' he said, 'I'll see you around, Grey.'

She nodded.

'Yeah. See you around. See you.'

Derek ducked out into the hallway with some relief and set about convincing himself that he'd entirely imagined the flash of disappointment in her eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**In which Meredith fakes some travel emergencies, and Derek and the Dartmouth shirt are first introduced. **

**Big thanks and cookies to the amazing people who reviewed; g, Skittlesgurl87, KathleenMcdempsey, cristiano700, thorteso, and caliginous.**

**And a shout to Juni, because you left me 4 brilliant reviews, and I don't have a link to reply to you. So thank you for your lovely comments, they're very much appreciated, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story!**

It was a brilliant Sunday morning – by Seattle's standards anyway – the sun was just about shining, the birds were just about singing, the house was empty, and Meredith was cooking breakfast.

At least, she'd made coffee, and peeled a banana. Which for her, very much counted as cooking. While she ate, she flicked idly through one of Mark's medical textbooks, something which she'd never be caught dead doing by any member of her family.

Luckily for her, the chances of being caught were next to nil. Her mother was at the hospital, and would be until midday Monday, and Mark was out, probably in the bed of his latest catch from the hospital. Despite Meredith's initial misgivings, it wasn't really all that different having her brother home again. He was rarely in, spending most of his time either at the hospital or out partying and on the pull with his friends.

A very small part of Meredith had felt a twinge of hurt that Mark didn't make any effort to spend more time with her, but she'd survived without him for three years now. And the rational part of her acknowledged that at least he had come home, despite the now infamous Christmas argument.

Besides, it was very hard to resent Mark when his return to Seattle had brought Derek Shepherd into her life. In the entirety of her 18 years, Meredith had never met anyone quite like him.

The first time she met him, she classified him as one of her brother's stupid, albeit stupendously good-looking friends. The second time, as one of her mother's under-the-thumb, brown-nosing interns.

But somehow, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quite squash him into either of those categories. He listened to her. He didn't judge her. He made her laugh. And he was stupendously good-looking.

He was also the first intern that had ever collected her from school to have actually had the backbone to get anything out of her mother in penance. And the first to have agreed to drop her off at Christina's instead of frog-marching her home.

Ludicrous as it was, she'd almost enjoyed that first trip home with him. They'd bantered, and she'd found herself teasing him, and trying to make him laugh – experiencing a little warm swell of pride every time she was successful.

He was older than her, probably smarter than her, and certainly in a whole other realm in terms of physical appearance, and yet he appeared to enjoy her company. To be honest, it was an ego boost.

And that was really her only excuse for her behaviour over the past month.

* * *

In her defence, it had all started when some blonde bitch in the year above had called Christina a crack whore. In her official capacity as Christina's 'person', Meredith had had little choice but to go barrelling in to defend her friend's honour. The fact that it had lead to a black eye on the blonde bitch and yet another trip to the Principal's office on her part was just an unfortunate coincidence.

Slouched in the chair in reception, waiting for her lift home, Meredith had found herself hoping, just a tiny bit, that the intern that walked through the door (because it would definitely **be **an intern) would be Derek.

And she hadn't been disappointed. Her heart had done a weird fluttery thing when she saw it was him, and disgusted at herself, she'd greeted him with,

'Crap. You again.'

He hadn't appeared to take offence, merely grinning at her amiably.

He still hadn't brought the bike, but he was scrubbing in on a kidney transplant, and he agreed to drop her off at Alex's house, so Meredith was happy.

They'd bantered all the way home, and when Meredith had waltzed into Alex's kitchen, she'd been grinning like a fool and had been met with a disgusted look on the behalf of her friend.

Unfortunately for Meredith, after those two brief car journeys, and catching various glimpses of Derek as he went to and from the hospital with Mark, she had begun to feel a strange urge to see him again.

It was pathetic, yes, and probably just the stupid fantasy of a teenage girl, but once the desire had rooted itself in her brain, there was no getting rid of it.

And so, one rainy Thursday afternoon, when she really didn't feel like walking home, she'd decided to kill two birds with one stone, and had rung her mother. Claiming that she'd forgotten her bus fare, Meredith had crossed her fingers and prayed that her mother was, by now, so out of the loop with her daughter's everyday life that she'd forget Meredith usually walked home.

At the time, Meredith hadn't been sure whether to count her blessings that her mother had been utterly clueless or to feel just another pang of that age-old hurt, but now with hindsight, she was definitely counting blessings.

Because her mother had sent an intern to collect her and that intern had been Derek. The few times in the past that Meredith had had lifts from the same intern more than once, she'd been able to sense their ire and frustration building with each trip, but with Derek it had been different. He had grinned at her as if genuinely pleased to see her, and hadn't even muttered a word of complaint about having to drive her home.

Sad as it was, the ten minutes in the car with him had been the highlight of Meredith's day and it was when she'd realised that that she'd sworn to have as little to do with as possible in the future.

It was a real shame she had so little self-control.

Passing out in AP Physics had definitely not been her fault, but deliberately leaving her bus fare at home before the trip to the Museum of Flight? Yeah, that one was on her.

She hadn't intended to. In fact, before the fainting episode, she'd been doing a great job of not thinking about Derek. But that had all gone to pot once he'd had to collect her, still wobbly and slightly green, from the medical room. For the first time, he'd asked her where she wanted to be dropped off, citing that he wanted her to be somewhere where there would be someone to take care of her.

That was what had done her in. She'd known, from the minute he dropped her off at Izzie and George's trailer park, that she was going to be faking another emergency in the very near future.

She'd held out nearly a week, and then, when the school trip had come around, had just accidentally on purpose, left her money on the kitchen table.

She'd felt so utterly pathetic after that little episode that she'd refused to let herself think about him again for an entire week, during which she'd actually, horrifyingly, started to miss him. Which didn't exactly help with the feeling pathetic thing.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Fate had been on her side that week, and on Friday evening she'd seen Derek again. He'd just turned up, unannounced, in her living room.

She and Christina had been dancing. Her best friend had sensed that she was down about something and had insisted, as was their routine, that they should dance it out. They'd been right in the middle of that, when Meredith had turned around and found Derek in the doorway, his deep blue eyes focused completely on her.

Ordinarily, she would have been utterly humiliated at being found in the middle of an unreserved disco session, but the look on his face stopped her. Just for a moment, before he tore his eyes away from her and composed himself, Derek'd had been looking at her like she was…the sun or something. And Meredith could swear to God she hadn't been imagining it.

Of course, Christina had promptly ruined any warm, fuzzy feelings she might have been having by then embarrassing her beyond all recognition. Calling Derek by the nickname they'd coined for him to his face was utterly humiliating, and his obvious amusement had been even more so.

She'd salvaged the situation as best she could, dragging her teenage rebel attitude out from the mountain of blushes, and thought he'd almost seemed to be considering Christina's offer to join them.

But then, he'd walked out of the kitchen, and she hadn't seen him since.

Heaving a sigh, Meredith swallowed her last bite of banana, and stood up to throw the skin in the trash. Eyeing the mountain of washing up that had appeared on the draining board, she sighed wearily, and began running a bowl of hot water.

She was elbow deep in soap suds, wearing very fetching rubber gloves, and singing loudly to her iPod, when she heard the doorbell ring.

Frowning, Meredith stepped back, gingerly scraping a strand of hair behind her ear, and wondering exactly who that might be. She wracked her brains, but couldn't remember inviting anyone over.

It definitely wouldn't be her mother. The most likely other candidate was Mark, but he had a key.

Bemused, she danced her way through to the hallway, and threw the door open.

And then froze. Why, oh why, had she decided to answer the door in nothing but her mother's oversized Dartmouth t-shirt and a pair of rubber gloves?

And why, oh why, was Mark not **fucking **home?

On the other side of the door, Derek Shepherd raised an amused eyebrow at her.

'Hey, Mer,' he said.

That was another odd thing about him – the way he'd taken to the shortened version of her name with such ease. It had taken her best friends several months to get comfortable with calling her that, but it rolled off his tongue as if it had been born to do so.

'Uh…hey Derek,' she muttered, feeling herself going furiously red. She tugged on the hem on the t-shirt fruitlessly. This somewhat backfired as Derek's eyes skimmed downwards and traced the curves of her legs. Not even wanting to know what he thought of her, Meredith fought the urge to hide behind the door.

Her obvious discomfort must have been visible on her face, because Derek sighed, shifted the stack of textbooks he was holding from one arm to the other and said,

'Sorry to intrude on your Sunday morning. I know Mark's not in, I'm just here to drop off these textbooks as a favour to him. He got called into the hospital.'

'Right,' she muttered, still embarrassed, and reached out to take the textbooks from him. He resisted, backing off a step.

'No, these are kind of heavy, if I could just…?'

He raised an eyebrow and inclined his head in the direction of the hall. Realising that she was completely blocking the doorway, like a territorial dog, Meredith jumped aside.

He grinned at her.

'Thanks.'

Shuffling past her into the hall, he bent over, offering a very fine view of his ass, and relieved himself of the textbooks with a groan of relief. To Meredith's inappropriate ears, it sounded vaguely pornographic.

Oh God. She resisted the urge to bang her head against the hall wall.

'Right,' she said, 'well, thanks. Not thanks on my behalf, but you know. Thanks on Mark's. Although he's probably already told you thanks from him. So just…uh…'

'You're rambling, Meredith,' Derek said, taking a step closer to her, and reaching out. What the hell was he doing?

Ever so gently, he brushed a strand of her pink hair back, and behind her ear, and softly said,

'You're rambling, and you have soap in your hair.'

Meredith, entranced by his proximity and the soft tone of his voice, swayed slightly towards him, looking up into his eyes, which were warm with an unidentifiable emotion. That was when his actual words registered. And she remembered the rubber gloves.

'Crap!' she swore, jumping back, and hurriedly tugging the rubber gloves off.

Derek chuckled.

'I was…doing the washing up,' she muttered, furiously red.

He nodded.

'I don't doubt it.'

There was a long silence, during which Meredith stared fixedly at the wall, before Derek moved towards the door.

'Well, I suppose I'd better be going…' he said, and was it her imagination, or did he sound the tiniest bit reluctant?

'Yeah,' she said, reaching out to steady herself on the edge of the door, 'you probably should.'

Derek was halfway out of the door before Meredith officially lost control of her own body.

'Or,' her mouth blurted out, sans permission, 'you could stay for a while?'

'Stay?' he sounded bemused.

'I was just about to make coffee,' she lied.

'Coffee?' he smiled at her, his eyes twinkling, 'well, if it's coffee and…' he paused as her iPod switched tracks in the kitchen, '…coffee and Duran Duran, who am I to decline?'

He turned towards the kitchen, laughing.

'Oh shut up,' Meredith muttered after his retreating back.

'I heard that,' he called, sticking his head back out of the kitchen.

'You were supposed to!' she yelled, and shot him her best glare.

She saved the ridiculous, face-stretching smile for the front door as she closed it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sooo, some of the reviews I've had have expressed a desire for MerDer fluff. Having just seen the Season 4 finale (yes, I'm behind, but I'm working on it), my muse was in the mood to oblige, so this chapter was re-written and became about 200% less angsty in the process. Ho-hum. **

**On the downside, the angst is probably still to come when I get into my stride with Season 5 and watch as MerDer get screwed up again...which they undoubtedly will be? **

**Anyhoo, massive thanks to Juni, caliginous, pl782 and mcdreamy-lover89 - this is for you guys. **

It was far from the first time Derek had been in the kitchen of the Grey household, but somehow, this time, the room felt different.

The décor was still the same, some of the surfaces were still a little dusty, and Derek would have been prepared to bet his mother that there was still no food in the fridge. But the room felt different. Warmer perhaps, a little more welcoming.

This might have been to do with the scent of fresh coffee filling the air, or the half-done washing up on the side, or the mountains of books and papers on the kitchen table, but Derek had a horrible suspicion that it was, in fact, just Meredith's presence.

However, as it had been so long since Derek had felt even remotely at home anywhere, he thought he should perhaps stop questioning this turn of events and focus on more important matters.

Like exactly what the hell he was playing at.

It had only been two days since he'd seen Meredith, but when Mark had asked him to drop some textbooks at home as a favour, adding 'my sister will let you in', Derek had jumped eagerly at the chance to run the errand. Perhaps a little too easily, as Mark had shot him one hell of a strange look.

Anyway, he'd just been planning to ring the doorbell, give her the damn books, and leave – hoping that simply laying eyes on her would give him the fix he was starting to crave – but then Meredith had managed to shoot that plan straight out of the water.

She'd answered the door in nothing but a long t-shirt and a pair of rubber gloves, and the effect on Derek had been astronomical.

The t-shirt was a Dartmouth one, soft grey and slightly worn, and it clung to Meredith's slight frame in all the right places, highlighting the swell of her breasts, the smooth curve of her hip, and tapering to a finish just above legs that seemed to go on for miles.

She probably wasn't even legal, but all Derek had been able to think about was tearing that damn piece of clothing off her.

Meredith hadn't helped matters by shifting uncomfortably under his gaze and trying to tug the hem of the shirt down. All this had achieved was focusing Derek's eyes on the bottom of the t-shirt, wondering what was underneath it, and picturing her long legs wrapped around his waist.

Obviously sensing his scrutiny, Meredith had shuffled back behind the door, clearly embarrassed, and biting her lip.

Derek's blood had performed a neat U-turn and headed south, and he'd known that he needed to get in and out of the house fast, before he embarrassed himself.

But when he'd straightened up from depositing the books in the hallway, she'd been so close to him, and there'd been soap in her hair, that Derek had reached out, tucking back a single silky strand before he could stop himself.

That had been Meredith's cue to ask what the hell he was playing at, but instead she'd swayed forward a little, and it had taken all of Derek's not inconsiderable willpower not to kiss her.

He'd made his first sensible decision there and then and decided to get the hell out fast, and come back when she looked less tempting.

Unfortunately, Meredith had chosen that moment to extend an invitation inside. It was both the last thing he'd expected her to say, and the thing he most wanted, and this combination turned out to be somewhat fatal, because he found himself saying yes.

And so now, he was sitting at her kitchen table, watching her make coffee whilst humming to whatever music was playing on her iPod, and cursing himself. She was however, now wearing jeans, so even if the image of her bare legs was burned into his mind, at least he didn't have to actively look at them. Small mercies.

'How do you take your coffee?'

Her voice startled Derek out of his reverie, and he looked up to find Meredith regarding him over her shoulder, teaspoon poised above a cup of coffee, one eyebrow raised.

'Uh, white, one sugar,' he managed to answer.

She grimaced, barely imperceptible, but he still caught it.

'What?' he laughed.

She dunked a spoonful of sugar and a slosh of milk into the cup, and deposited it on the table, before settling across from him with her own mug cradled between her hands.

'Sweet coffee, urgh,' she wrinkled her nose at him.

He rolled his eyes.

'So I suppose you're one of these hard-core 'drink it black' kind of people?'

She giggled and then bared her teeth at him.

'**Everything **about me is hard-core, Derek.'

That made him laugh properly.

'Including your hair?'

Meredith nodded vigorously.

'**Especially **my hair.'

'What, so pink is the new black in terms of teenage rebel?'

She shot him a mildly insulted look.

'Less of the teenage, if you please.'

Derek raised an eyebrow at her.

'Why?'

Meredith looked at him closely.

'How old do you think I **am, **Derek?'

He shrugged.

'Uh…sixteen, maybe?'

She snagged an orange from the fruit bowl and threw it at his head. Derek ducked in the nick of time, and the fruit rebounded off the door behind with a thwack.

'Hey!' he exclaimed.

'I'm eighteen!' Meredith snapped, cheeks flushed, and eyes bright with irritation.

Derek stared at her.

'Seriously?' he said.

'Yes, Derek. Seriously. I was eighteen in August.'

Derek stared at her. God. She was eighteen. He'd realised that she wasn't as young as he'd first come to presume, but…she was legal. She wasn't a child, she was fucking **legal. **

Dear God, he was screwed. And she was still glaring at him.

He pulled his best puppy dog eyed expression, hoping she wouldn't be as immune to it as she was to Mark's.

'Sorry,' he said.

To his surprise, Meredith seemed to defrost somewhat.

'Hmph,' she said grumpily. 'Just try to remember I am actually an adult, despite the rebellious hair.'

Something occurred to Derek.

'Wait, so you're actually a senior? Not…a sophomore or a junior.'

'Correct.' Her tone was laden with sarcasm.

'That means you're applying to college now then?'

Meredith shrugged.

'I haven't decided much just yet.'

Derek gaped at her.

'You haven't?'

She looked at him, as though confused.

'No? Why so surprised?'

He shrugged.

'I just would have thought that…' he gestured at the open medical textbook lying on the table next to her homework, '…what with Mark and your mother, you'd be a dead cert. for med school.'

This apparently was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Meredith instantly stiffened up, and broke eye contact with him. She shoved herself to her feet, collecting both her empty mug, and his not-so-empty one and dumping them in the sink.

Derek decided not to protest.

A few moments passed in awkward silence, during which Meredith scrubbed at a plate with a soapy cloth as though her life depended on it, before Derek's guilt at so obviously upsetting her, however unknowingly, overtook him.

'Mer, I'm…I didn't mean to…'

He saw Meredith's hand still suddenly. She turned to face him, and looked him dead in the eyes, her face expressionless.

'We barely know each other, Derek, but I'm going to shoot for a little honesty here. I like you. You seem like a nice guy. I know I'm your best friend's baby sister, and your boss's difficult daughter, but I thought we might be on the way to being…if not friends, then at least acquaintances…'

Here Meredith trailed off, clearly giving him the chance to contradict her. It was the last thing in the world Derek wanted to do, so he kept quiet; holding her gaze steadily, and keeping his face expressionless.

Meredith's body language didn't really change, but there was a tiny sag in her shoulders when he remained silent, that Derek interpreted as relief.

'You were saying?' he prompted, after Meredith failed to continue.

She started.

'Right. I was saying. We could be acquaintances. Or friends. Maybe. Or you could just be the intern who bails me out from school. Whatever. But before any of that happens, there are some things you should know about me.'

'Fire away,' Derek said, partly amused by her rambling, partly burning with curiosity and the hope he might be about to learn something more about her.

Meredith took a deep breath.

'My favourite food is beans on toast. I love to dance. Tequila's my poison. I don't believe in God, because I hate the idea that I'm not in control. My friends are the most important thing in my life. I like lavender; the flower, the scent, the colour. My favourite band is the Go-Go's. My hair's naturally blonde. I don't smoke. I'm stubborn, focused, and I can be a little crazy. I have issues with trust and abandonment. And most importantly, I will never, ever be my mother.'

Derek sat in silence, slightly stunned, trying to process that sheer amount of information. Most of it didn't surprise him; her natural hair colour, her atheism, her choices of food and drink, her summary of her personality, her love of dancing, and her comment about her friends.

Some of it did; her penchant for lavender, her status as a non-smoker and her favourite band, but Derek wasn't tactless enough to miss the part of the speech that was clearly most important to her.

Meredith Grey was not her mother. And she wouldn't stand for comparisons.

She was watching him now, and Derek could detect a hint of wariness in her green eyes. He took a deep breath.

'Okay. My mother's maiden name? Maloney. I have four sisters. I have uh…two nephews, three nieces. I like coffee ice-cream, single-malt scotch, occasionally a good cigar. I like to fly fish. And I cheat when I do the crossword puzzle on Sunday. And I never dance in public. Favourite novel – The Sun Also Rises. Favourite band – The Clash. My favourite colour is blue. I don't like light blue. Indigo.'

'Derek…' Meredith tried to interrupt him, and he could see hurt flash through her eyes as she thought he was making fun of her.

He held up a hand to silence her protest.

'No wait, let me finish. I grew up in Manhattan; I'm genetically engineered to hate everywhere else. Seattle's a little lonely for me. Four weeks ago, I met a girl. She's a little different, but I like her. I think we're going to be good friends. Her mother's famous. Her mother's my boss. If I said I hadn't compared them, I would be lying. You know what I found? They're both smart, and fierce and tough as nails. Good at what they do. Competitive, I'd imagine. They don't suffer fools. But that's where the similarities end. I've only known the girl a month…I don't really know her at all. But she's loyal, and funny, and sweet. And I have don't have to know her, to know she's not her mother. And I have a thing for ferry boats.'

Slightly short of breath, Derek stopped, almost embarrassed by having said all of that. However, any discomfort he might have been feeling was swiftly alleviated by the look on Meredith's face.

She looked stunned, mostly, but beneath that, her eyes were gradually softening, the green becoming warm, and captivating Derek, until he forced himself to look away.

He cleared his throat, and that was when she smiled. It started small, but then it spread, until it took over the whole of Meredith's face, lighting her up. He grinned back, unable to stop himself.

'So,' she said, 'you have a thing for ferry boats?'

And then they were laughing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Huge thanks to mlle-guilotine, SassafrasGrey, Fallyn, apocalyps24, Lala1995, caliginous, pl782, Inke82 and g for the lovely reviews. You guys rule :)**

**A quick note as to Derek's age in this fic, as a query was raised in a review. I was presuming Derek to be roughly 24/25 in this fic - I know that's an age difference between him and Meredith, but that was one of the issues I wanted to explore. **

**And so. **

**In which there are theological discussions, dancing as therapy, and a potential case of indigestion. **

* * *

'_So', she said, 'you have a thing for ferry boats?'_

_And then they were laughing._

* * *

It took several minutes before Meredith could control her giggles long enough to breathe. Across the room from her, Derek was on his feet, grinning at her like the cat that got the cream.

'I can't,' he said, slightly breathless, 'believe I just said all of that.'

Neither could she, if she was being honest. Somewhat against both habit and her better judgement, all Meredith had been trying to do was test the waters as to their actually being friends, as opposed to just a rebel-and-her-mother's-slave kind of team, and let Derek know that she wasn't her mother.

Secretly, she'd had a feeling he knew that already but long experience with her mother's interns had led to a sudden bout of insecurity and self-doubt when he'd mentioned med school, and she hadn't been able to stop herself.

Almost as soon as the words were out, Meredith had been cursing herself, knowing that she'd shared way too much personal information way too quickly. She barely knew him for God's sakes. And she had fully been expecting him to tell her that they weren't friends, it was all in her head, and of course she wasn't her mother, she'd never be half the woman Ellis Grey was.

Instead, he'd quite literally taken her breath away by responding to her crazy speech with an equally crazy one of his own. Meredith had met the grand total of five people who didn't consider her completely inferior to her mother, but she'd never met one who, after knowing her only a month, had confidently proclaimed her to be superior.

There was a strange warm feeling in her heart, and her stomach was breeding butterflies, and she was very aware that both of these were dangerous. She wasn't this girl. She'd **never **been this girl.

So what was it about Derek Shepherd that made her want to try it?

* * *

The whole situation felt slightly unreal to Derek. He wasn't really the type of man to have heart to hearts, but he was pretty sure that this conversation counted as one.

However, it wasn't a bad thing, because the atmosphere was considerably warmer and lighter than it had been a few minutes ago.

Meredith was looking at him strangely, as though he'd just told her he was trying to operate on an elephant, but the remnants of her giggling fit still lingered in the form of a small smile, so he didn't think he'd offended her.

'I can't believe you said all that either,' she said.

He shrugged.

'You shared some stuff, so I figured I should share some stuff. That's how this kind of thing is supposed to work isn't it? By sharing.'

Meredith laughed.

'I never had you pegged down as such a softie. Or a fan of angry British punk.'

Derek mock-frowned at her, secretly loving the light banter.

'The Clash are a damn good band, Meredith Grey. And who are you to talk? The **Go-Go's**?'

Meredith pouted at him, and Derek had to swallow hard.

'Well, at least we're both in the wrong decade, music-wise.'

He grinned.

'Sometimes, living in the past is a good thing,' Derek paused, suddenly curious, 'can I ask you a question?'

Meredith shrugged.

'Sure. You can ask.'

'Sharing,' Derek reminded her pointedly.

'Shut up, and talk to me,' she snapped.

'Why don't you like the idea of not being in control?'

Meredith's look was incredulous.

'You know anyone who enjoys it?'

'No. But I also don't know anyone who feels so strongly they base their entire faith off it. Or non-faith, in your case.'

Meredith sat back down at the table, picking absently at the corner of a book.

'I just hate the idea of no free will. Of there being someone else in charge, making all the decisions, and being capable of anything.'

'But God is the embodiment of all things good. So surely it shouldn't matter if he **is **in charge?'

A tiny wrinkle appeared between Meredith's eyebrows as she thought about this, and Derek suppressed the urge to reach out and smooth it away.

She sighed.

'Here's the thing. People can be cruel. Evil, even. And if God does exist, and is allowing us free reign, then he can't be omnibenevolent. If he does exist, and he **is** omnibenevolent, then he can't be omnipotent, because otherwise he'd stop us. So the way I see it, my choice is between an all-powerful God who does nothing to stop evil, or an all-loving God who doesn't have the power to. And I think it's dangerous to believe in either.'

'Dangerous how?'

Meredith eyed him suspiciously.

'Why are you so interested in my theological beliefs?'

Derek shrugged.

'I'm interested in everyone's. They fascinate me.'

The suspicious look intensified.

'You're a very strange man, Derek Shepherd.'

He raised his hands in defence, grinning.

'My father's a vicar. It's in my genes. So come on, dangerous how?'

Meredith narrowed her eyes at him.

'Fine. Believing in an all-powerful God who does nothing to stop evil – dangerous because it promotes the belief that evil can be interpreted as God's word. Believing in an all-loving God who cannot stop evil – dangerous because it promotes the idea of unconditional forgiveness. Both grant you absolution. A person who believes they have absolution is a very dangerous thing. Having faith does not automatically make you a good person. It does not automatically make your actions acceptable.'

Derek digested this, silently. He could see what Meredith meant about trust issues.

'Do you always believe in the worst case scenarios?' he asked.

'It's called realism.'

'Cynicism,' he corrected.

Meredith rolled her eyes.

'Whatever. Are we done with the cross examination?'

Derek tutted at her.

'This is called a conversation, Mer, not a cross examination. And, no, now you mention it, I'm not quite done. I have another question.'

'Oh, by all means, fire away,' she muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Derek grinned, enjoying the battle of teasing information out of her. She was proving something of a challenge to get to know, and he liked that.

'Not med. school then?' he asked, referring back to his comment that had started the whole conversation.

Meredith's eyes slanted sideways, and she tapped a finger on the table.

'I don't talk about this,' she said, and Derek thought she sounded wary. The tapping of her finger increased in both speed and volume. He instantly felt a twinge of guilt for making her so uncomfortable.

'Sorry,' he said, 'I don't mean to pry. It's none of my business what you do with your life.'

'No,' Meredith agreed quietly, 'it's not.'

There was an awkward silence.

'So,' Derek said, 'that concludes my cross-examination. Your turn.'

* * *

Her turn? Meredith wasn't all that sure she could cope with learning anymore about Derek Shepherd just yet. Her brain was spinning already.

She could hardly believe that she'd told him all that stuff about why she was an atheist. She hadn't told anyone that before. Although, that might be because no-one had actually asked. She couldn't quite comprehend why he would care about what she believed or why she believed it. Even if he was a vicar's son. The idea that he was simply interested in her was exhilarating, but terrifying at the same time.

She'd anticipated the question about med school. It was the one everyone asked. She always refused to answer it, because truth was, she honestly didn't know if she had an answer. It felt like that area of her brain was so helplessly tangled and confused that trying to pry into it and form some sort of coherent conclusion would drudge up far too many issues and far too much discomfort to ever be worth it.

Normally, she just tried to forget that med school was even an option for her, and so far, she'd been very successful. But for some worrying reason, when Derek had questioned her about it, she'd felt a sudden desire to try and answer him. Maybe it was because he simply sounded curious. Not pointed, not judgemental, just interested.

However, she still hadn't been able to bring herself to form a coherent sentence, so she'd fobbed him off in her usual way.

She'd expected, and, if she was honest, half hoped he would pry further, but instead he'd backed straight off, stating that it was none of his business and clearly worried he'd offended her.

It wasn't any of his business, so she'd agreed with him, and ignored the tiny voice in her brain that was suggesting, very pointedly, that maybe Meredith would **like **it to be his business.

She was starting to hate that tiny voice.

'Mer?'

Derek's voice broke through her thoughts, prompting her, and she realised she should be replying.

Slightly thrown, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

'You never dance in public?'

* * *

Derek laughed.

'My mother sent me to ballet classes with my sisters when I was six. They forced me to be a swan in the class production of the Nutcracker. I had to wear **feathers **in my hair, and **tights**. I fell off the stage, broke my ankle, and when I came round in the ambulance, I made a vow never to dance again. Ever.'

Meredith had turned away to finish washing the dishes as he spoke, but only a moron could miss the shaking of her shoulders as she dissolved into giggles.

'It's not nice to laugh at the humiliation of others,' he said pointedly.

Meredith turned back to face him, a soapy mug in her hand, and a grin on her face.

'I know,' she said. 'But you were a **swan**. With **feathers**. And **tights**. If that doesn't count as child abuse, then I'm the Queen of Sheba.'

Derek laughed.

'Oh I don't know,' he said, 'it did put me in touch with my feminine side. I'm a good listener. Very sensitive. And I can cook.'

Meredith raised one eyebrow.

'You don't wax your chest do you?' she asked.

Derek choked on the mouthful of cold coffee he'd just taken.

'No!' he sputtered.

Meredith nodded, turning back to the dishes.

'Good,' she said, 'cause that would be creepy.'

Derek wondered if she even had any idea just how adorable she was. He decided a slight subject change was in order.

'I take it from what I saw Friday that you do like to dance?'

Meredith let the water out of the sink with a whoosh and a gurgle, and snagged a dishtowel.

'Yeah,' she said, 'we all do.'

'The friends you were with?'

Meredith nodded.

'It's what we do when things suck.'

Derek shot her a questioning look.

She shrugged lightly.

'Some people drink it out, some fight it out, some talk it out, some cry it out. We like to dance it out.'

'So that was what was happening on Friday? Things sucked, so you were dancing it out?'

Meredith nodded.

'Yup. Christina and I…were eradicating emotional trauma caused by our respective mothers.'

Derek decided he wasn't even going to touch that statement.

'Christina. She's the one you claim is your sister?'

Meredith nodded.

'Yeah. I've known her a couple of years now. We met when we both doing work experience.'

'What about the girl who could make Barbie weep with envy?'

Meredith grinned.

That's Izzie and I'll tell her you said that. The guy that was on the couch is her baby brother, George. They're the ones that I visit when you drop me at the trailer park.'

'That means the guy with the fabulous sneer must be Alex.'

'Izzie's boyfriend,' Meredith nodded.

'They seem an odd match,' Derek commented.

Meredith shrugged.

'Yeah, but Alex is completely besotted. It's actually kind of sickening.'

Derek laughed.

'You're not a romantic then?'

She rolled her eyes at him.

'Christina says I have ''commitment issues''. She takes out bets on how long my boyfriends will last.'

'Is she ever right?' Derek was curious now.

'Yes, unfortunately. I'm determined she be wrong this time though.'

This time? Implying that Meredith had a boyfriend at the moment? Derek felt a sharp twinge in his stomach at that idea – an odd mix of possessiveness and jealousy.

Big brotherly feelings, he reminded himself sharply. Just because she was legally an adult, did not mean it was acceptable for him to want her in that way. No matter how good she might look in just an old Dartmouth shirt.

His stomach twinged again.

Indigestion, he decided.


End file.
